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Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

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Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#291

Post by kerryfalk »

saiya-jin wrote: post #151
atemerev wrote: post #67

Here's what we have in Switzerland: http://www.premiereligne.ch/quai9/ (basically, a drug user's paradise: a "consumption space" injection rooms, clean drugs available, medical attention and reanimation in case of overdose, therapy programs and support programs with the intention to help people quit drugs without stigmatizing them and pushing them to it). It is immensely successful. Drug crime becoming nonexistent he…

Wait, you are talking maybe about heroin addicts beyond saving. But if you just want to buy some weed, you definitely must go to shady characters standing on corners of dark streets in the night, and buy overpriced at-best-mediocre-quality stuff from there (I am not racist or anything, but 100% of them in Geneva are black - that's 5 years of experience). Police guys are constantly patrolling these areas (often with d…

"I am not racist or anything, but 100% of them in Geneva are black - that's 5 years of experience"

...it doesn't seem far of a stretch to make the leap to using your statement here to indicate that you may in fact be racist.

There was no reason to indicate their race, so why do it? Did they have blue eyes, too? What can I infer from shady blue-eyed people on street corners selling me drugs?

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#292

Post by zeveb »

rayiner wrote: post #210
soneca wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The history said, in this case, that money and power did not win the dispute, not that their influence does not exist or should be considered negligible. So, if in the case of drugs, society moral standards, money and power are all at the same side; what's the chance of grassroot movement changing the laws? That question was not rethorical, but giving my own answer, I think the path is changing the perceptio…

You're ignoring a morally significant dimension to the problem. Nobody becomes a drug addict by accident. They choose to do drugs and take the risk not just of bodily harm, but of becoming unable to support their families and becoming a burden on society. And your suggestion is that society should spend money to treat them of an illness that was their fault to begin with. I happen to agree with you that treatment, no…

> if drugs are harmful and addictive, why can't society ban people from selling them, like it does for all sorts of other harmful products?

That begs the question: should society ban the sale of harmful products? I can buy: a sword; a gun; a packet of cigarettes; arsenic; cyanide; Doritos; Dianetics; Season 1 of Survivor and so forth. All of these things may be argued by some to be harmful (and by others not to be).

Why may I not choose to buy cocaine, LSD or marijuana as well?

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#293

Post by daveheq »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #41

The drug problem was studied years ago by the RAND corporation and the US Military - a pure cost-benefit analysis. They found that treatment and education are the most cost effective way to deal with the drug problem, and that prohibition was the most costly and ineffective means of dealing with it. Therefore the government understands that the war on drugs is likely to be unsuccessful, and we have to ask ourselves,…

Also because the ATF and law enforcement agencies get huge funding allocations fighting drugs and have lobbied for more and stricter laws as well as increased spending; it's become culturalized and almost a heritage to the point of being something families and groups rely on almost religiously throughout generations, not to mention the moralities mixed in heavily with religion.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#295

Post by zeveb »

Torgo wrote: post #237
jernfrost wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very had to compare to Japan because Japan essentially legalize organized crime. Yakuza are allowed to operate as long as the follow a minimum set of laws. Basically Japan is following a tradeoff where they have chosen organized crime of lots of unorganized or violent crime. So it will be very hard to compare such a system with a western country which deals with these issues in such a different manner. I can mention…

Maybe we should legalize organized crime instead of drugs. The logic is about the same.

What are the traditional organised crimes?

- numbers games: this is just a lottery, only with better payouts

- drugs: already addressed

- prostitution: legal in many countries

- loan sharking: this is just lending to risky borrowers at market rates, when lending at market rates is made illegal

- protection racket: the only real crime here (and, like numbers games, the State hates competition…)

I'd be fine legalising all but the protection racket, because it really is a racket.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#296

Post by fapjacks »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #41

The drug problem was studied years ago by the RAND corporation and the US Military - a pure cost-benefit analysis. They found that treatment and education are the most cost effective way to deal with the drug problem, and that prohibition was the most costly and ineffective means of dealing with it. Therefore the government understands that the war on drugs is likely to be unsuccessful, and we have to ask ourselves,…

Right. Can verify. Step one of the CIA "send operations people into a country to fuck them up" is generating the money necessary for the operation locally (with the first recommendation towards that goal being to deal drugs). Global drug legalization would make it very hard for the CIA to undermine foreign governments so quickly. If you take drugs out of the equation, it is hard to generate lots of cash quickly.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#297

Post by humbleMouse »

DanBC wrote: post #217
humbleMouse wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Street dealers don't really sell weed as they used to now that better and legal weed exist, so they went on heroin." This is an extremely misguided statement. The demand for high quality weed has never been higher. It doesn't matter if you legalize it, because you are still taxing it 50%. The individual sellers and producers will keep doing their thing. I can tell you right now that people who sell weed don't just m…

> The demand for high quality weed has never been higher. A minor point, but cannabis use has gone down.

Sources?

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#298

Post by fapjacks »

maxxxxx wrote: post #256
Synaesthesia wrote: post #41

The drug problem was studied years ago by the RAND corporation and the US Military - a pure cost-benefit analysis. They found that treatment and education are the most cost effective way to deal with the drug problem, and that prohibition was the most costly and ineffective means of dealing with it. Therefore the government understands that the war on drugs is likely to be unsuccessful, and we have to ask ourselves,…

A lot of people in law enforcement, prisons, CIA and defense industry probably also did a cost-benefit analysis and found that prohibition is a very effective way to keep their jobs.

The prison lobby (guard unions, etc) is actually fairly loud about this. They make a lot of noise around things that put and keep more people in jail. It's way past "probably"!

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#299

Post by ufmace »

EdHominem wrote: post #274
rayiner wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're ignoring a morally significant dimension to the problem. Nobody becomes a drug addict by accident. They choose to do drugs and take the risk not just of bodily harm, but of becoming unable to support their families and becoming a burden on society. And your suggestion is that society should spend money to treat them of an illness that was their fault to begin with. I happen to agree with you that treatment, no…

> Nobody becomes a drug addict by accident. Not true. Many people reasonably take the pills their doctor gives them and end up with an addiction. > That poses another moral question: if drugs are harmful and addictive, why can't society ban people from selling them Because you can't. It failed. It's not a moral question. In fact, that's specifically the problem. > but voters aren't driven by cost-benefit analysis. So…

>> but voters aren't driven by cost-benefit analysis. >So, what of it? We should keep doing things we know don't work because the uninformed don't understand?

So we live in a democracy, and so have to pay at least some attention to what the people want.

The alternative is a dictatorship of some sort. Historically, those tend to ignore cost-benefit analysis and whether or not things actually work just as much as any democracy. Main difference is that the opinions of only one or a handful of people matter, and you have no access to influence those opinions, no matter what you think of them.

Re: Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

#300

Post by fapjacks »

wfunction wrote: post #11

Is there evidence to show that legalizing drugs (I don't mean e.g. tobacco here; I mean the far more dangerous ones) won't significantly increase their consumption? I ask because, unless there is, I'm afraid I do not understand why it would be rational to do so...

Take a look at Portugal, which has now had general drug decriminalization since the early 2000s. There was an initial spike in general usage, but it dropped to lower levels than were seen before decriminalization. However the number of addicts remained the same throughout. It's a very interesting and eye-opening thing they have going there.
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